It has come up a few times lately, a notion that Jesus may have made a morontia appearance to a group of Native Peoples in the Americas. This idea is reminiscent of the The Book of Mormon’s description of Jesus’ visit, healing the sick, teaching the gospel, and even calling twelve disciples to organize His Church in the Americas (Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 11:18; 3 Nephi 12:1-2).

I was, at first, very skeptical when I encountered such a seemingly romantic fancy among The Urantia Book (The UB) readers. I felt that if such a significant appearance had been made, it would certainly have been included with the list of “nineteen separate morontia appearances” described in Papers 190 to 193. But serious students were proposing the possibility, so I had some second thoughts. I recalled and reconsidered the peculiar myth of Quetzalcoatl, the white, blue-eyed, bearded god who brought corn (maize) to the peoples of Central and South America, among other gifts. The explanation I had previously developed, based on a Urantia Book perspective, was that he was descended from the group of “one hundred and thirty two” sea-faring Andites who landed in South America eons ago (78:5.7). Could Quetzalcoatl (Kukulcan) be a racial memory of Jesus’ visit in his morontia form?

Determined to figure this out, I read The UB Papers 190-193 again to make certain. I found the appearances were so specifically numbered and sequentially described, with a detailed account of where each one occurred, often including many names of the believers, and with an approximate number of who was present, right up to the final ascension on Mt. Olivet (193:5.1). 

Incidentally, the experience of re-reading these sections of The Urantia Book is very rewarding, at times highly emotional, always uplifting. These passages include some of the most memorable teachings of Jesus, among which his psychological counseling and wise guidance of the bewildered, occasionally overwrought, and depressed apostles demonstrated the tremendous insight into human character, and the love that the Master (Michael) possesses for his followers.

I found that in most of the 19 appearances Jesus appeared at locations where he’d taught before, or to groups where he was already well-known and loved as a teacher, people likely to continue on ministering the gospel after he was gone. For example, he met with “Rodan and some eighty other believers, in Alexandria” (191:6.1); Nalda and “about seventy-five Samaritan believers” accustomed to meeting by the well at Sychar where Jesus had first taught her of his mission (193:1.1); and in the tenth appearance at Philadelphia “he showed himself to Abner and Lazarus and some one hundred and fifty of their associates.” (191:4.1) The famous meeting with the two brothers, also recorded in the Bible, is the oddest of the lot because it seems so random, walking the road, talking with men with whom he was not previously associated, although one was “a partial believer.” (190:5.1)

After I made this study, I could see no “wiggle room,” no ambiguity in the text, that might allow for morontia appearances not already catalogued. I concluded that the idea of Jesus presenting himself to Native Americans, despite its tremendous appeal, a myth we would like to believe in, was not credible in terms of The UB’s account. In addition, there’s the question of who he would have selected to visit? The visit with the two brothers shows his choice wasn’t always so methodical, however one of the brothers had found saving truth, listening to Jesus preach.

I have an unfinished research project into a religious revival I believe may have taken place in the Americas at the time of Pentecost. Native populations were swept up in a tremendous spiritual movement that reached from Hopewell, Ohio, “Mound Cultures” to Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, where whole cities were constructed for a religious purpose and pilgrimage of a yet to be determined kind. Not so far-fetched when we remember that the Spirit of Truth was a “gift of the spirit [that] did not come only to the apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the new teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. This new teacher was bestowed upon mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities.” (194:3.6)